Editor’s note: In the days following President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Repository editorials reflected Stark Countians’ shock, despair and anger. On Nov. 25, 1963, the day the president was laid to rest In Arlington National Cemetery, a Repository editorial paid tribute to him as a man and as a leader. Today, as a nation remembers Kennedy exactly 50 years after his death, that editorial, headlined “The man we remember,” seemed the most fitting to reprint. Here are excerpts from it:

As we pay our last respects to John F. Kennedy and ask forgiveness for the terrible violence among us that caused his life to be destroyed, we are learning something about ourselves. ...

Such as the fact, for instance, that our late President had earned esteem as a man in a way that could not be reflected in methods used to gauge his success as a politician. ...

He scrupulously avoided the shabby political device of appealing to anti-intellectualism. He was proud of his own background of learning, grateful for the heritage of mental attainment to advance the national interest.

He had earned special gratitude for his deft handling of religious prejudice in the United States. As our first Roman Catholic president, he revealed what never should have needed to be revealed — that the religious beliefs of a public leader are his personal concern and not part of the public’s business.

He practiced his religious devotion in a way that has eliminated religious prejudice in presidential politics. No one could have done a better job in this respect. ...

His countrymen placed special value on President Kennedy’s clear perspective on his acts. If it be the true measure of a man’s humility that he has retained his sense of humor, here was a man of extraordinary stature.

He retained objectivity about himself, his intimates, his associates and all public matters on which he gave judgment. This often made him a target of criticism for those who would have preferred a narrower, more emotional attitude. But in the long view it made him a candidate for the distinction earned by former Prime Minister Macmillan of Britain — an “unflappable” head of state.

The two-party political mechanism by which our nation is governed exists side by side with but separately from the emotional forces that give the American people their national nature.

We are political partisans only when dealing with partisan matters. Beyond these matters we are united by adherence to the admired standards of human behavior.

John F. Kennedy had encountered great difficulty in his efforts to cope with the two-party political mechanism — difficulty intrinsic in the nature of the mechanism at the moment in history he came to the presidency.

Page 2 of 2 - But as we acknowledge our affection for him at this sorrowful moment of his passing, it is obvious he had earned and was given an extra measure of his countrymen’s love.

In this he transcended the frustrations of politics. He became first of all a man and only secondarily a politician.

It is for this that he will be remembered.

Have we not all learned from his tragic death that no more horrible thing can happen than the cancerous growth of hatred that can cause one man to destroy another over a difference in politics?